Tag Archives: Jaluit

Lest those who might have thought the latest chapter of the continuing Amelia Earhart disinformation campaign had come to a neat and tidy close with theJuly 11 reportfromThe Guardianonline that the photograph of the dock at Jaluit in the Marshall Islands had been found in a Japanese travel book published in 1935, we now have another, not unexpected, loose end. You might recall that The Guardian reported that “The image was part of aJapanese-language travelogueabout the South Seasthat was published almost two years before Earhart disappeared.”

“Does it get any worse than this?” I wrote in myJuly 12reviewof the latest History Channelpropaganda effort,“Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence.”“If the report is true, whatever the photo claims that began with NBC’sWednesday, July 5 promotion barrage, are now entirely destroyed, discredited and defunct.”

I didn’t need a report from a Japanese blogger to convince me that the claims made by Les Kinney, Morningstar Entertainmentand the History Channel, first broadcast nationwide by NBCNews on July 5, were false and totally without substance. I was the first to publicly denounceKinney’s assertions for the delusions (at best) that they were, and I’d known about this shameless plot to grab headlines under false pretenses for many months, since a reader from Pennsylvania procured the same photo from the National Archives in College Park, Md., and sent it to me.

Now Karen Earnshaw, a journalist who lives in the Marshall Islands and wrote June 26, 2015and July 9, 2015stories in the U.K.’s Daily Mail online about Dick Spink’s discoveries at Mili Atoll’s Endriken Islands, has informed me in a July 16 email about a Marshallese government press release she found on Rich Martini’s blog.Here is the release:

I

It’s not easy to read this rather fuzzy document, so here is its content:

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is following your investigation of the Amelia Earhart mystery with great interest. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, confirms that the photograph found in the US National Archives is the dock at Jabor on Jaluit Atoll.

Jabor Dock was built in 1936. The events of this period are still recalled by our eldest citizens. The claim that Jabor dock was already built in 1935 does not match the historical record. Therefore, it would not have been possible for any photos to have been taken of the Jabor dock in 1935. The dock simply did not exist. The elders who confirmed that Amelia and her navigator were brought to Jabor are of the highest standing and reputation in our community.

The obvious question is, who are the “your” referred to in the first line of the press release? Closely following that, we can ask who besides Rich Martini and TIGHAR, who I’ve been told also has posted it, was this release sent to? Surely they weren’t the only recipients of this highly significant statement from the Marshallese government. I think it’s perfectly obvious that the Marshalls statement was sent to many, if not every major player in the American media. How Martini and TIGHAR obtained it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that no one else in our media has paid any attention to it.

Joel Freedman, of Canandaigua, N.Y., who writes letters and editorials to newspapers locally and nationally in support of the truth, contacted the Marshalls Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was informed that the press release did originate with the Marshallese government. So at least we know this is a legitimate document.

So what does this latest revelation, which so directly contradicts The Guardianreport about the 1935 origin of the photo, really mean? It must be insignificant, based on the complete silence emanating from our esteemed media, and indeed it does mean little. But the media isn’t interested in it forentirely different reasons. They’ve already played their roles with the phony photo claims in advance of the History Channel’s Earhart special. As far as the establishment media is concerned, the Marshalls-Saipan truth has been discredited, and the public is once again flummoxed and confused about all aspects of the Earhart case. Mission accomplished.

This is the photo that began the current furor, with NBC News breathlessly announcing on July 5 that the Earhart mystery may soon by solved, and which was the cornerstone of the July 9 History Channel special, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence.” In the program, Les Kinney falsely claimed the photo actually revealed the lost fliers. In the right background is the ship Kinney says is the Japanese survey ship Koshu, with a mass of metal on its stern that could well be a salvaged airplane, possibly the Electra, but impossible to confirm because the definition is lacking.

It’s more than likely that the Republic of the Marshall Islands, an independent nation that doesn’t answer to the United States on all matters related to its Earhart propaganda program, was simply not informed by the appropriate parties that the current operation was over. Some in the Marshallese government might actually have been trying to be helpful and set the record straight about the provenance of the photo in relation to the dock at Jaluit. I’m sure their efforts were not appreciated, judging by the overwhelming media silence that has greeted the press release.

Meanwhile Martini has now joined the vision-challenged Les Kinney in insisting, despite all evidence, that the photo does indeed reflect the presence of Earhart and Noonan, in effect doubling down on the insanity most thought had been put to rest — and seemingly has been, with the exception of these two luminaries. Martini has apparently decided that he has nothing better to do than to team with Kinney on his grave-digging detail to incoherence and irrelevance in the Earhart chase. But is this really a case of the blind leading the blind, or is it something altogether different, something far more sinister than mere incompetence?

On his blog, Martini further muddles the picture by injecting the interesting but complex and unverifiable tale of the “bottle message” found on a beach in France in October 1937 that some have unsuccessfully tried to tie to Earhart by way of French explorer Eric De Bisschop. I decided long ago not to venture into these very murky waters that demand too much speculation to ever be accepted as fact. If you want to be thoroughly confused, I suggest you visit RichMartini’s blog,where you will come away with far less clarity than you arrived with.

For those who still fail to understand what has recently transpired despite my best efforts to explain this deviously planned disinformation exercise as clearly as possible, I can only suggest that you carefully re-read the previous posts on the HistoryChannel travesty, and to review Dave Martin’s Seventeen Techniquesfor Truth Suppression to see how many of them fit nicely into the despicable drama we’ve seen unfold since NBC Newskicked it all off with their promotion blitz on July 5.

The bottom line is that “Earhart Fever,” a condition I’ve seen work its insidious ways on far better than these two, is alive, well and highly contagious. Its victims can be identified by their abject willingness to say or do anything that will bring them a moment’s more attention than they otherwise deserve, which is little or none at all.

Readers of this blog can continue to trust that this correspondent will always tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. My integrity and credibility are all I have, and they are infinitely more valuable to me than a few minutes on a third-rate History Channel Earhart special.

Once again we dip into the archives of the Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters to present another of the late Bill Prymak’s invaluable contributions to Earhart research, an interview with the legendary Robert Reimers just a year before his death in 1998. Without Prymak’s efforts, the voice of this well-known Marshallese entrepreneur would likely never have been heard outside of his beloved islands. The following piece appeared in the May 1997 issue of the AES Newsletters, and is presented for your information and entertainment, as always.

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT REIMERS by Bill Prymak

The passengers queuing up at the Majuro International Airport for the Air Micronesia flight to Honolulu were getting restless. The flight was already one hour late, there were no seat reservations, the plane was overbooked (as usual) and the terminal was crowded and hot.

Quite inconspicuously, but with obvious authority, an elderly couple (the man deeply tanned and spry), were ushered to the head of the line and escorted to the airplane. Not feeling slighted, but curious, I asked one of the airport security men who the couple was.

With great reverence he whispered, “Why that is our Mr. Robert Reimers, with his wife.”

Robert Reimers, founder, CEO, and genius behind the sprawling Robert Reimers Enterprises, Inc. (RRE as it is known), has hotels, shopping centers, hardware stores, travel agents, and dive boat operations at Majuro. And flung across the vast length and breadth of the Marshall Islands, RRE owns perimeter hotels, fuel depots, stores and nearly every commercial enterprise that exists on the outer atolls and islands. He is number ONE. Even his address: P.O. Box 1, Majuro, Marshall Islands, tells you of his station.

Robert Reimers, the top businessman in the Marshall Islands in 1991, told Bill Prymak that the Mili Atoll landing of Amelia Earhart in 1937 was common knowledge among his people. Reimers passed away in 1998.

This man, I said to myself, has got to be interviewed!!

Once we were aboard and seated on the plane, I was able to finagle Mr. Reimers’ grandson into swapping seats with me, and for the next three hours I had a fascinating insight to one of the most powerful and influential men in the whole Marshall Islands. My interview:

AES: Mr. Reimers, we just came back from Jaluit . . . do you personally know much about the Island?

REIMERS: Bill, I was born at Jabor (Ed. Note: main island and town at Jaluit Atoll), in 1909, and was raised there until 1935, when our family moved to Likiep Atoll. Tourists never visit Jaluit; what made you go there?

AES: Some of my group had been there before. We wanted to see the children again, and we were looking for additional information on Amelia Earhart.

REIMERS: Ah, yes, the Earhart woman . . . why are you Americans still looking for her and her airplane?

AES:Mr. Reimers, she has never been found, and her sister, still living, and other family have been searching for so many years . . . they deserve to know.

REIMERS:Ah yes, family. I know family very well; do you know I have eleven children and sixty-seven grandkids?

AES: That is remarkable. We have observed that family ties are very strong in the outer islands. Can you tell me some of your experiences with the Japanese before Word War II?

REIMERS: The Germans had made Jaluit their commercial headquarters before WWI, but you’re not interested in events that far back. When the Japanese Navy kicked out the Germans, they sealed the (Marshall) Islands to all foreigners. Those very few Americans and other foreign nationals that did sneak under the curtain were shown only what the Japanese wanted them to see, and that was very little. About 1930, I had established myself with the Japanese as a responsible trader, and I did much commerce with them right up until and through WWII. I even supplied them with construction materials and local labor for their island projects.

AES: In what kind of “projects” were you involved?

REIMERS:Well, before 1935, it was mainly commercial and communication facilities: harbor dredging; wharves; docks; hospitals; and big, tall radio towers. But after 1935, the Japanese began some military projects like the airfields at Wotje and Maloelap. I had a good business relationship with them. But after 1936, they began bringing in foreign construction laborers, and conditions got worse for my local people.

AES: When did construction work begin at Emidj?

In June of 1946 Dr. Leonard Mason snapped this shot of Robert Reimers standing on the stern of an outrigger canoe with two friends as they sailed across the lagoon, probably at Kwajalein.

REIMERS: Emidj was a very secret place, and even my local people had little access to this area. I was one of the few Marshallese allowed in because I delivered construction materials regularly. Jabor docks were built in 1936, and the seaplane ramps and docks for the naval base at Emidj were started about the same time. My shipping records were all taken by the Japanese when the great war started, but I am sure of the dates I just mentioned. Military construction projects at Mili did not start until 1940.

AES: What hospital facilities were available in 1937 at Jaluit?

REIMERS: The Japanese converted the old German hospital at Jabor to a very small medical facility, and at Emidj they built a hospital because so many workers, mostly Korean, were there working on the concrete phase of the seaplane naval base.

******************************

A meal break was taken at this point, so I had time to reflect on what he had stated so far. Mr. Reimers has a remarkable memory, and perfect command of the English language. At first glance, and after listening to him, you’d swear he was only sixty or so. His wife, hearing the conversation but not participating, obviously understood every word, with her smiles, nods, and concurrence to her husband’s words. Without any doubt, this man was telling it as it indeed happened. When everyone finished their meal, we continued:

AES: Many of your people that we interviewed at Jabor and Emidj, notably the elders, speak of the brutality of the Japanese against your people during the war years. They described how for the theft of a coconut, a head was severed . . . how Emidj became the execution center for both Allied prisoners of war, and the local population. Can you comment on this tragic chapter in your country’s history?

REIMERS: Remember, Mr. Bill, I called Likiep Atoll my home during the war period, but I was conscripted by the Japanese military to continue my supply lines of materials to their many island bases. And some of my travels took me back to Jabor. Emidj was very secretive, but the stories you hear today from the elders ring true. I must add that towards the end of the war, when things were going badly for the Japanese, my people feared for their lives, and fled to unoccupied islandsto escape what they expected as mass slaughter for those who stayed. These times were very bad for the Marshallese . . . the elders remember as I do.

AES: In July of 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator disappeared, and the Western world did not hear from them again. Can you help me, and her family, with any information you may have regarding the possibility of her being down in your islands?

REIMERS:It was widely known throughout the Islands by both Japanese and Marshallese that a Japanese fishing boat first found them and their airplane near Mili. They then transferred them to a bigger boat. They were brought to Jabor, where Bilimon [Amaron] treated them. Oscar deBrum, and the Carl Heine family (including the boys), were living there and knew of this.They were then taken to Kwajalein and from there to Truk and then Saipan. There was no mystery . . . everybody knew it!

AES: But Mr. Reimers, the Japanese strongly denied seeing the two American aviators. They even sent airplanes and ships out to search for her. How can this be?

REIMERS: Even in 1937, an intrusion in these islands was a very serious offense. And in the case of Earhart, a woman pilot, great cover and secrecy was placed upon them by the Japanese. But, of course, these are our islands. And my people — even in their fear — proved very resourceful knowing about such things.

AES: Did you personally know Bilimon, and the Heine family?

REIMERS: I knew Bilimon very well, and rest easy if you worry about his story of treating the two Americans.You will never fmd a more honest man. You know, of course, he died last year. He was a good man. And the Heine family . . . John and Dwight’s parents were executed during the war. I grew up with them, and they were the finest missionary people I had ever met. John and Dwight knew about the Americans, but would never talk much.

Bill Prymak and Joe Gervais pause with the famed Earhart eyewitness Bilimon Amaron at Amaron’s Majuro home in 1991.

AES: Researchers like Joe Gervais, sitting across the aisle, have visited your islands several times. Even as far back as 1960, he made several trips to SAIPAN where he met the same curtain of silence. Do the natives not care, or are they still fearful of the Japanese?

REIMERS: It is difficult for Americans to understand the fright and fear of my people during the war. At any moment the Japanese could come smashing into your house and take away any possession you may have, and then march you off to prison—or even worse. After the war, these fears did not die easily. There are some old timers who still think the Japanese might come back. It would not be wise to discuss things deemed secret during the great war. People saw so much killing, they may say, “Why the big fuss over one lady flyer? We saw thousands die!”

AES: Ah, but Amelia was special to the American people.

******************************

I could hear the 727’s engines power back for descent, and Mr. Reimers’ eyes told me the interview was concluded. After expressing my deepest gratitude, I wished him well, and told him our group would come back again to his Islands.

“Don’t forget,” he chided with a parting smile, “call me, and I’ll find the right boat you. Maybe one of mine will do the job. Good Luck! Find your Amelia.”

POSTMORTEM THOUGHTS: Three hours with Mr. Reimers certainly taught me a great deal more about the man and his country than the above highlights reveal. Here was a man of intense pride, unquestioned integrity, and now in his mid-eighties, a very private person. I kept imagining what it would be like, to be at his side in the mid-thirties, sailing with his men and boats between the islands, dealing with the Japanese as they prepared for their inevitable confrontation with America. Couldn’t we magically just once turn that clock back, only for a day, to be with Bilimon that summer morning in Jabor, 1937, and truly see the cast of characters that played out that historic event? Oh, my kingdom for a camera, and all I ask for is only one photograph.(End of Prymak article.)

Robert Reimers died on Sept. 27, 1998; his wife Lupe followed on July 23, 2000. They are survived by seven children: Richard (Kietel), Francis (Teruo), Vincent, Ramsey, Minna, Ronnie and Reico; and hundreds of grand-, greatgrand and great-greatgrandchildren. For more information on the life of Robert Reimers,please click here.

With the recent passing of my dear friend Bill Prymak at age 86, we can write finis to a great era of Earhart research. Bill has joined a host of Earhart researchers whose myriad contributions have made an enormous impact in establishing the facts about Amelia’s tragic end on Saipan, and although our current national zeitgeist stands in vehement opposition to their findings becoming widely known anytime soon, the truth will stand the test of time and will someday be revealed to all when the U.S. government finally finds the fortitude to do so. Bill’s death leaves only Paul Rafford Jr., 95, the former Pan American Airways radio flight officer and author of Amelia Earhart’s Radio: Why She Disappeared(2008) and Joe Klaas, 94, Joe Gervais’ close friend who penned the infamous 1970 book, Amelia Earhart Livesas the only surviving old timers.

Beginning with today’s post, as a tribute to Bill and his formidable contributions to the Earhart saga, I will republish some of the great research articles that graced the pages of his remarkable Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters, which he produced, without fanfare or remuneration, and solely for the limited membership of the Amelia Earhart Society in his Broomfield, Colo., office from December 1989 until March 2000. I know Bill would be happy that his fine work, and that of many others, is honored and shared with the remaining few who continue to seek and value the truth.

This issue of Pacific Islands Monthly is from May 1934. Four years later, the magazine presented missionary Carl Heine’s report of finding the strange letter to Amelia Earhart at the Jaluit Post Office.

Due to the columnar format of this blog, it won’t always be possible to exactly reproduce the letter-size that comprised Bill’ newsletters, but I’ll do everything possible to present these entries as close to their original look as possible. I’ll also make it clear when the material presented is taken directly from Bill’s AES Newsletters.Today’s article is taken from the May 1991 issue of the newsletters, and looks like this:

FROM: PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY MAGAZINE 5/25/38

POSTAL MYSTERY, UNCLAIMED LETTER FOR AMELIA EARHART

From: Mr. Carl Heine a special correspondent and German missionary in the Marshall Islands, Jaluit Atoll, March 17, 1938

“Here is a curious thing. On November 27, 1937 in the Jaluit Post Office, in the Marshall Islands (Japanese), among the unclaimed mail a certain letter attracted my attention. In its upper left corner was printed ‘Hollywood-Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood California.’ A little lower down appeared the postal date stamp with “Los Angeles, California, October 7, 10 pm,” within the circle, Lower down in the usual place appeared the following stating address:

“Written diagonally across one corner was this, ‘Deliver Promptly.’ On the back of envelope ‘Incognito’ was penciled in very small, fine handwriting. The letter was unopened, and consequently I have no idea of its contents. Now, it seems to me that anyone in U.S.A. writing as late as October, ought to be well aware that Amelia Earhart had been given up as lost long before. Hence, it would appear that the letter may have been written by some one desirous of hoaxing the public. Still, it is just possible that such may not be the case at all.

“Certainly, the writer of the address on the envelope, while making some errors such as anyone at a distance might make, displays a little more geographical knowledge of these parts than one would expect of the average individual, but which one would certainly expect of anyone about to traverse the Pacific, and would be passing this group at a distance of a few hundred miles.

“It is conceivable that Amelia Earhart may have told some trusted friend in America, before setting out on her ill fated journey, that she intended to take a look-see in at the Marshalls enroute or that she might possibly do so if in any danger as she passed by. And it is possible that this hypothetical friend in Hollywood might think that Amelia had reached this group, and might be lying low for some reason or other at Maloelap. It seems curious that anyone without specific interest in the group should know the name of that particular atoll which is of no great importance. What the number (10) might mean in connection with that island I have no idea.” (End of Carl Heine’s original narrative.)

HISTORICAL NOTE: “Maloelap Island”(Bill Prymak’s comments follow.)

“Prior to WWII in the Pacific the Japanese built its first military operational airfield among the Marshall Islands Group on this island. During the invasion of the Marshall Islands by the U.S. Forces during WWII, Maloelap Island was bypassed and not occupied. The Japanese on this island did not surrender until after the signing of the surrender in Tokyo Bay.”

“ED NOTE: Isn’t it coincidental that Margot DeCarie, AE’s personal secretary, was living in the Hollywood-Roosevelt Hotel during Sept-Oct. 1937? It is stated that with her death in 1983, the true answers to the AE mystery were buried with her….” (End of entry.)

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, circa 1937, where Margot DeCarie, Amelia Earhart’s personal secretary, was living during the September-October 1937 time frame, when the mysteries letter to Earhart was delivered to the Jaluit Post Office.

This is all we know about the letter. Carl Heine obviously respected privacy rights — even of those believed deceased — too much to open and read its contents, and no one else has ever indicated what became of it. It’s quite possible that the letter was confiscated by U.S. intelligence assets soon after they learned of its existence, and it’s probably joined Robert E. Wallack’s briefcase and the photos of Amelia and Fred reportedly discovered by Seabee Joe Garofalo and other GIs on Saipan, deep in top secret archives where nobody can get to it.

We do know that DeCarie wasn’t shy about expressing her ideas about what happened to her boss in July 1937, but we can also wonder whether she told people like Fred Goerner all that she really knew. In a phone interview sometime in the early 1960s, she told Goerner that she had “promised secrecy” to an unknown party, but still gave him plenty to think about. “Do you really think Purdue University bought that plane for Amelia,” she asked, “and do you think that it was intended for some kind of vague experimentation? Second, if the whole thing was a publicity stunt … why did the government assign some of its top experts to the flight, and why did President Roosevelt have an airfield built for her? Last, do you believe the President ordered the Navy to spend four million dollars on a search for a couple of stunt fliers?” DeCarie was sure Earhart “died a long time ago,” and that the Japanese captured her “within moderate range of Howland Island. … President Roosevelt knew everything,” she said. “He knew the price Amelia paid.” Margot Decarie passed away in North Hollywood, Calif., in 1983 at the age of 79.

In his 1997 book, Where Nets Were Cast: Christianity in Oceana Since World War II, John Garret wrote that during the war, Carl Heine was given the option to leave the Marshalls, but he chose to stay. He was detained, along with his wife, at times in isolation by the Japanese. “In January 1944 US bombing became heavier at Jabor, preceding the full counter-attack on fortified positions,” Garret wrote. “Many Marshallese – but few, if any Japanese – died in the most intensive bombardment in March. In April, Carl R. Heine was beheaded and his body burned at Enijet, Jaluit.” (Garrett is clearly in error about the location of Heine’s beheading, as Enijet is an island on Mili Atoll, not Jaluit Atoll.)

Heine’s grandson John would later tell Earhart researchers about the barge with the silver airplane with the broken wing he saw at Jaluit as a child. “It was the plane an American lady had been flying when she crashed,” Heine told T.C. “Buddy” Brennan in 1983, and he believed that after leaving Jaluit the ship “went on to Kwajalein … then on to Truk and Saipan.”

Posts navigation

The Second Edition of “Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last,” is a large 7″ by 10″ paperback offering 370 pages at the same low retail price of $19.95, and significantly less at Amazon.com. The book adds two chapters, a new foreword, several new subsections, the most recent discoveries, rare photos and a near-total rewrite to the mountain of overwhelming witness testimony and documentation presented in the first edition of “Truth at Last. ”

Even as a child, Amelia had the look of someone destined for greatness. In this photo, she seems to be gazing at events far away in time and space. Who can fathom it?

This is a priceless portrait of our heroine at the tender age of 7. She seems to be peering into timelessness, as if she can actually see the amazing adventures that are in store for her — and us. Who can fathom it?

Follow "Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last" via email.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Search

Amelia at Spadina Military Hospital, Toronto, Canada, circa 1917-’18

While visiting Muriel at St. Margaret’s College in Toronto in 1917, Amelia encountered three Canadian soldiers who had lost a leg, and decided, on the spot, to join the war effort. She enrolled in the Voluntary Aid Detachment and was assigned to the Spadina Military Hospital. “Sister Amelia soon became a favorite among the wounded and discouraged men,” Muriel wrote.

Arrival at Londonderry, Ireland, May 21, 1932

Earhart had spent the last 15 hours tossed by dangerous storms over the North Atlantic, contending with failing machinery and sipping a can of tomato juice to calm her queasy stomach. That day—May 21, 1932—she planned to end her journey at Paris’ Le Bourget airfield, where exactly five years earlier Charles Lindbergh had completed the first solo transatlantic flight. When her Vega’s reserve fuel tank sprang a leak and flames began engulfing the exhaust manifold, however, Earhart wound up navigating to a Northern Ireland pasture. From that moment , Amelia Earhart’s star shined brightest, and her like has never been seen since.

Acclaim at Londonderry

Another great photo of Amelia, as she prepares to take off from Derry, Northren Ireland, and fly on to London, where worldwide fame awaited. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked, “Have you flown far?” Earhart replied, “From America.” The site now is the home of a small museum, the Amelia Earhart Centre.

Summer 1960: The Saipan Truth comes out

The headline story of the May 27, 1960 edition of the San Mateo Times was the first of several stories written by ace reporter Linwood Day that set the stage for Fred Goerner’s first visit to Saipan in mid-June 1960 and led Goerner’s 1966 bestseller, “The Search for Amelia Earhart.” Day worked closely by phone with Goerner, and on July 1, 1960, the Earhart frenzy reached its peak, with the Times announcing “Amelia Earhart Mystery Is Solved” in a 100-point banner headline accross its front page.

This story appeared in the San Mateo Times “Family Weekly” news magazine on July 3, 1960. The sensational account revealed details of her life as an 11-year-old on 1937 Saipan, but the true picture of what she actually saw that day remains in question. Was it a seaplane or a landplane in trouble that landed at Tanapag Harbor?

Fred Goerner with witness Manual Aldan, Saipan, 1960

Fred Goerner with witness Manuel Aldan on Saipan, June 1960. Aldan was a dentist whose practice was restricted to Japanese officers in 1937, and though he didn’t see the American fliers, he heard much about them from his patients. Aldan told Goerner that one officer identified the white woman as “Earharto!” (Courtesy San Francisco Library Special Collections.)

The only bestseller ever penned on the Earhart disappearance, “Search” sold over 400,000 copies and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for six months. In September 1966, Time magazine’s scathing review, titled “Sinister Conspiracy,” set the original tone for what has become several generations of media aversion to the truth about Amelia’s death on Saipan.

This story, which announced Thomas E. Devine’s Saipan gravesite claim, appeared in the San Mateo Times on July 16, 1960. Devine returned to Saipan in 1963 and located the gravesite shown to him by the Okinawan woman in August 1945, but did not share his find with Fred Goerner. Instead Devine planned to return to Saipan by himself, but he never again got the opportunity.

Thomas E. Devine, whose involvement with events surrounding the discovery and destruction of Amelia Earhart’s Electra 10E as a 28-year-old Army postal sergeant on Saipan in July 1944 shaped the rest of his life. Devine’s 1987 classic, “Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident,” is among the most important books about the Earhart disappearance ever penned.

Thomas E. Devine’s “Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident” (1987) is Devine’s first-person account of his eyewitness experiences on Saipan, where he saw Amelia Earhart’s Electra 10, NR 16020 on three occasions, the final time the plane was in flames. Devine’s book is among the most important ever penned in revealing the truth about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

On November 13, 1970, the Japan Times reported, for the first time, the shocking claims of Mrs. Michiko Sugita, who was told of Amelia Earhart’s execution on Saipan in 1937. Sugita, the eleven-year-old daughter of the civilian chief of police on Saipan in 1937, told the Japan Times in 1970 that Japanese military police shot Amelia Earhart as a spy there. Sugita, the first Japanese national to report Earhart’s presence on Saipan, corresponded for a time with Thomas E. Devine, but later went missing and his letters were returned, marked, “No such person, unknown.”

Mrs. Michiko Sugita, Japanese national, Earhart witness

Mrs. Michiko Sugita, whose account as told to the Japan Times in 1970 remains the only testimony from a Japanese national that attests to Amelia Earhart’s presence and death on Saipan following her July 2, 1937 disappearance. Sugitia corresponded with Thomas E. Devine for a few years in the mid-1970s before Devine’s letters were returned with the notation, “No such person. Return to sender.”

This story appeared at the top of page 1 in the July 13, 1937 edition of the Bethlehem (Pennsylvania)-Globe Times. “Vague and unconfirmed rumors that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan have been rescued by a Japanese fishing boat without a radio,” the report began, “and therefore unable to make any report, found no verification here today, but plunged Tokio [sic] into a fever of excitement.” The story was quickly squelched in Japan, and no follow-up was done. (Courtesy Woody Peard.)

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz: Fred Goerner’s most respected informant

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, circa 1942, the last of the Navy’s 5-star admirals. In late March 1965, a week before his meeting with General Wallace M. Greene Jr. at Marine Corps Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Nimitz called Goerner in San Francisco. “Now that you’re going to Washington, Fred, I want to tell you Earhart and her navigator did go down in the Marshalls and were picked up by the Japanese,” Goerner claimed Nimitz told him. The admiral’s revelation appeared to be a monumental breakthrough for the determined newsman, and is known even to many casual observers of the Earhart matter. “After five years of effort, the former commander of U.S. Naval Forces in the Pacific was telling me it had not been wasted,” Goerner wrote.

Marshall Islands 50th Anniversary Commemorative Stamps, 1987

The independent Republic of the Marshalls Islands issued these four postage stamps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s landing at Mili Atoll and pickup by the Japanese survey ship Koshu in July 1937. To the Marshallese people, the Earhart disappearance is no mystery or rumor, but a stone cold fact.